The Good Die Young (1955)

One of my all time favorites.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Really good film that can be watched time and again. They would all have been better off staying single-especially Eddie, whose desertion from the USAF I find indefensible. Nor should Joe have grassed up Rave! One side-Eddie says he's going to do something he should have done long ago-slight jump and he dumps his wife in the bath. Did he originally put her over his knee and spank her?

What a sizzling lead performance in this superb British noir film by Larry Harvey! And what a terrible irony in the title, since Larry died at the age of only 45 in 1973. I remember him so well on the day walking in Hampstead with his little daughter Domino that he told me he was dying of stomach cancer. I asked him if he were certain, if there were not something 'they could do', but he merely looked at me with his ironical smile, a resigned one, and said no, he was dying. His nonchalance did not desert him. He shrugged it off sadly but with his ingrained insouciance. His reaction to his own imminent demise had no self-pity in it, but was full of pathos, as he regretted that he would not be able to watch Domino grow up. Alas, she too has now gone. He also worried about what would happen to Paulene, who is still as glamorous as she was then. But how sadly some meet their ends. Gloria Grahame, who also sizzles in this film, only lived to 58, and Stanley Baker only made it to 48. So yes, the good die young. But Joan Collins, ostensibly only 21 at the time (but already in her ninth feature film role!), is still with us and currently working on her 119th film! This film, brilliantly directed by Lewis Gilbert (and I noted that Jack Clayton, himself later to be such a brilliant director, is credited here as Associate Producer), is a terrific psychological study of how a group of desperate men can come together to commit a crime which they would otherwise never commit. Their individual stories are all fully sketched by a cast of wonderful pros. The four men are Richard Baseheart, John Ireland, and Stanley Baker, led by the mischievous, amoral, and as it turns out, probably psychotic, Larry Harvey, as the character known as 'Rave'. The devilish, pathological scheming of 'Rave' is brilliantly shown, and in the scenes towards the end of the film, Larry is positively terrifying. Robert Morley has a brief look-in which he slightly overdoes, but then he always had a propensity to overact, especially with the excessive widening of his eyes at crucial moments. Gloria Grahame does a wonderful job of playing a lascivious, 'gorgeous pouting', totally amoral movie starlet married to the long-suffering John Ireland. Ireland doesn't know whether he wants to kiss or to strangle her, as she is so exasperating but also so irresistible. And it was not only Ireland who found her so, but a large part of the Western world. Gloria Grahame certainly had 'that something', and more besides. The most polished performance in the film is probably that by Margaret Leighton, who later married Larry in 1957 (they divorced four years later). In the film she anticipates later true events by playing Larry's older wife. She is so insouciant and acts with such effortless ease that it is like watching olive oil coat the lens. In between Margaret Leighton's arched eyebrows there lurked a great deal of intelligence, a fine sense of humour, and an appreciation of irony. The stories behind the individual characters in this film are harrowing, and Joan Collins as an emotional prisoner of her harridan mother is particularly typical of the time. In those days, girls really did feel unable to leave their mothers and were easily emotionally blackmailed by them, whereas today the young are so indifferent to lasting attachments that a parent is merely another avatar in a video game, to be tossed aside when convenient. The central character remains the spoilt, narcissistic, pleasure-loving and wholly irresponsible 'Rave', who suffers from that condition known to psychologists as 'infantile omnipotence', and who reacts to the word 'No!' with a violent tantrum. The botched burglary and its aftermath is painful to watch, but I dare not say whether any of the vexed situations which drove the participants into it are resolved, for that would give away too much. Certainly, this is one of the finer British efforts in this genre during the 1950s.

The Good Die Young is a cracking British Noir picture directed by Lewis Gilbert and featuring a strong cast of British and American actors. Laurence Harvey, Stanley Baker, Richard Basehart, John Ireland, Gloria Grahame, Margaret Leighton, Joan Collins and Rene Ray are the principals. While support comes from Robert Morley and Freda Jackson.Adapted from the novel written by Richard MacAuley, the story starts with four men pulling up in a car, guns are passed around them and it's soon evident they are about to commit a serious crime. We are then taken through the sequences for each man, how they came to be at that point in time, what brought them together and their common interest; that of women trouble and financial strife. It's excellently structured by Gilbert, four separate stories, yet all of them are on the same track and heading towards the grim and potently "noirish" final quarter. Such is the way that we as viewers have been fully informed about our characters, the impact when things get violent is doubly strong. It takes you by surprise at first because the makers have given us a smooth set-up, and then there is the shock factor because these were not criminal men at the outset. But then..A real pleasant surprise to this particular viewer was The Good Die Young, it's got fully formed characters within a tight and interesting story. The cast do fine work, yes one could probably complain a touch that the ladies are under written, but they each get in and flesh out the downward spiral of the male protagonists. Rene Ray is particularly impressive as the fraught wife of Stanley Baker's injured boxer, Mike, while Gloria Grahame (walking like a panther) is memorable as a bitch-a-like babe driving her husband Eddie (Ireland) to distraction. Basehart is his usual value for money self, but it's Baker and Harvey who own the picture. Baker does a great line in raw emotion, a big man, big heart and a big conscious; his journey is the films emotional axis, while Harvey is positively weasel like as playboy sponger Miles Ravenscourt; someone who is guaranteed to have you hissing at the screen with his stiffness perfectly befitting the character. Top stuff. 8/10

Channel 4 recently screened The Good Die Young one afternoon so I set the video and was pleased I did.Four men, a boxer who has had one of his arms amputated, a rich man and two Americans are fed up of being short of money. The rich man suggests the four of them rob a post office which is having a delivery of £90,000 later that evening. After all agreeing, they head there but things start going wrong when a copper comes over to their car to tell them are illegally parked. He is shot dead and the gang the raid the van and take the money and escape into a nearby church yard. The rich man shoots the boxer first after he decides to give himself up, then as they are crossing the railway lines which are electrified, he pushes one of the Americans onto the live rails and is electrocuted. The two survivors manage to escape further from the police on an Underground train but the American decides he has had enough and goes back to his wife and they head to the airport to go catch a flight back to America. After making a last minute phone call to police telling them where the hidden money is, the rich man sees him in the phone booth but he is shot by the American. Thinking he is dead, he heads for the plane but is shot and then collapses into his wife's arms and dies. A sad ending.The movie has excellent location photography around London and one of the best parts is the railway sequence.This movie is worth having in a collection just for the cast: the gang leader is played by Laurence Harvey, the boxer is played by Stanley Baker (Zulu), the Americans are Richard Basehart (Voyage to the Bottom Of the Sea) and John Ireland. The rest of the cast includes a young Joan Collins (Empire of the Ants, Dynasty), Robert Morley (who only appears too briefly), Margaret Leighton, Freda Jackson (The Valley Of Gwangi), Rene Ray and Susan Shaw.Watching this is an ideal way of spending 100 minutes one afternoon. Excellent.Rating: 4 stars out of 5.